


Coming Out and I'm Doing Just Fine

by Awseomness



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Gen, In my head it's just sort of "Ninja Turtles" as a distilled essence, LGBT Themes, Maybe a bit more compliant with the current TV show, One Shot, Rather than any particular series, Trans Female Character, With pretty much any Turtles canon, kinda short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-25 03:05:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12026778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awseomness/pseuds/Awseomness
Summary: Michelangelo has had a question for a while, and at least if it's impossible, Donatello would know.(Inspired in part by this post.)





	Coming Out and I'm Doing Just Fine

"Come in."

Donatello didn't look up from his workbench, nor the assorted metal and plastic pieces in front of him.

The door opened, and Michelangelo walked through. "Hey, bro, you workin' on something important?"

"Hm? Oh. No, not really." Now Donnie set something aside and swiveled in his chair to look at Mikey. "Just a back-up water filter. You remember a month ago when it got clogged?"

"Oh yeah!" Mikey hopped into one of the other office chairs Donnie kept around. "Leo had to get the clog out with his sword. That was funny."

Donnie chuckled. "Yeah, it was. But, if we want clean showers and drinking water, best that it doesn't happen again." He held up what, to Mikey at least, looked like a random assortment of pieces all attached to each other. "I've almost got the filter part done. After that I need to make an automatic bypass and then some kind of indicator so we'll know when it's using the back-up."

"Cool. Cool." Mikey nodded and spun the chair around a couple of times.

There was silence between them for longer than Donatello was comfortable with. Longer than he was used to Mikey being able to go.

"Thanks for knocking." He tried. "Usually you just barge right in."

"Yeah..." Mikey looked away. "Sorry about that."

Another length of silence.

Donatello tried to wait for Mikey to speak again, but apparently that still wasn't going to happen. "Is there... anything you wanted to talk about, bro?"

Mikey frowned, hesitated, then started, "Don, can you keep a secret?"

Donnie raised an eyebrow. "Mikey, I was working on the Shellraiser for a year before you guys knew anything about it."

"What?!" Mikey swung the chair back around. "Why didn't you say anything, dude? I could've done the paint job or something."

"Oh, I never tell you guys about any of my projects. Mostly I get an idea in my head, start putting it together, and then I get bored and put it on a shelf. Then if it turns out we'll actually need something, I take it off the shelf and finish building it. Then everyone's like 'Oh, Donnie, you're so smart. Putting together what we need in, like, an hour.'" He laughed again. "Besides, I learned a long time ago that none of you really care about my projects until there are results. So, I just keep them to myself."

"I had no idea." Mikey said. "Wait, then how long were you working on Metalhead?"

"Metalhead was actually a bunch of other projects I'd been working on that I slapped together. Robot limbs, control systems, laser weaponry, plus a video game I was coding two-three years ago."

"Why were you working on robot arms?"

"In case... y'know, in case somebody... lost one."

"Oh."

Another silence, and Donatello figured, once again, he'd need to break it. "Okay, so, I told you my secret. Now, what's eating at you?"

Mikey took a deep breath before speaking. "Donnie, is it possible that I'm... not a boy?"

Donatello was not expecting that. It took him a moment before he was able to respond. "W-well, you know, Mikey, gender is... it's complicated. Why do you ask?"

"It's just..." Mikey hesitated again, "Sometimes - a lot of the time, actually - I feel like I might be a girl."

Donnie cleared his throat. "I see." He smacked his legs a couple of times. "Well, we are mutants, so biology isn't really a factor. I don't think any of us are fertile or anything, and we don't really know what we were like before mutating..." He stroked his chin. "I think we all just sort of assumed we were men because men are treated as the default. Which, in retrospect, probably says something."

"So I could be a girl?"

"Really the only one who can say if you're a girl or not is you." Donatello wished he had a book or a website he could pull up. Really any kind of prop. "Gender is really more a set of social roles a person identifies with than it is some physical reality."

"So, like... dresses and cooking and stuff?"

Donnie made an uncertain sound and a "More? Less?" hand gesture. "I'm not... completely sure how it works." Though he made a mental note to do some research. "I think if you SAY you're a woman, then you ARE a woman."

Mikey looked unsatisfied, but didn't push it.

"Do you..." Donnie hesitated. "Should I use different pronouns for you? Try calling you my sister?"

She looked at him, eyes brighter. "Maybe while it's just us. We can try it out." And then she looked scared. "But only while we're alone. I don't want Raph and Leo to find out."

Donnie put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure they'd-" But he stopped when he saw the worry in her eyes. "Just while we're alone." He agreed. "Until you say otherwise."

He thought for a moment, then added, "Little sis."

Mikey smiled. A good sign.

"Wait," She said, "does that mean that you decided you were a boy?"

Donnie shrugged. "I don't think about it much. We all defaulted to boy, and it's never made me uncomfortable. I've certainly never felt the need to transition."

"Transition?"

"When you start to present as your gender, and maybe get hormones or surgery."

"I'm gonna need surgery?!"

"No! Maybe? It depends on what exactly you'd want to change." Donatello stood up to pace. To temper expectations, he listed them in order of most- to least-doable. "Voice, hips, breasts, ...hair?"

Mikey looked mystified. "Those are options?"

"Again, we're mutated reptiles." He clarified. "Voice training doesn't take any medical intervention, and if I can figure out exactly how hormones actually affect us we can probably do something about widening your pelvis. But changing fat deposits might be a no-go, especially since our shells are connected to our skeletons, and hair... Well, we have eyelashes, and both scales and nails are modified hair..."

"Dude, if I want hair, I can just wear a wig."

"That is an excellent point."

"But I could get wider hips?"

"Possibly. And, potentially, thicker thighs. Depending on how that works in us."

"Could I get a badonk?"

Donnie laughed. "Maybe. I-I don't want you to get your hopes up before I have more data." He looked over at his computer set-up. "I'm going to have to build a complete medical simulation of you to run experiments on." He touched his chin. "Actually, I should probably have medical models of each of us anyway. Our lives are dangerous."

Michelangelo hugged him. Donatello hugged her back.

Honestly, as excited as she seemed about even the possibility of this, Donatello was probably more convinced than she was that she was right. That she was a girl.

"I should probably let you get back to work." Mikey said as she ended the hug.

"Yeah, I've... got a lot of new projects to work on." Donnie kept a hand on her shoulder. "When you feel up to it, you should talk to Master Splinter about this too. He'll embrace it."

Mikey nodded and turned to leave. When she got to the door, she stopped. "Hey, Donnie?"

"Yeah?"

"Is there, like... a word for this?"

"Transgender." He said. "Trans, for short."

Quietly, to herself, she whispered, "I'm trans."


End file.
